Stephen Fry unveils a brilliant plan to improve Trinity College

I have decided to apply for planning permission to redevelop my old college — Trinity — because that seems to be in fashion, and because I can. I think Trinity College Garden would be a great place for a Ben & Jerry’s, and the back block — the back quad — is so mediocre I think it should be replaced by a six-screen cinema.

I don’t own the land, of course. But that’s no obstacle.

In Botley, for instance, there is a whole terrace of shops — a single, architectural unit (rather like the back quad of Trinity) — which is actually owned by the descendants of its founder and builder.

It’s actually almost picturesque, as indicating something of the character of a ‘village centre’, and appears actually to be loved by local residents and other users for its actual thriving usefulness.

But that seems to have been no obstacle at all to a would-be-developer — someone calling itself Doric Properties — applying for planning permission to build a massive student-housing block on a piece of land that they absolutely do not own and over which they have absolutely no rights at all.

Apparently they are also applying to redevelop a local old people’s home.

Let it be quite clear — there is nothing to stop me applying for planning permission to redevelop Trinity College.

So, how am I going to actually get the land so I can build my six-screen cinema on Trinity’s back quad?

Well, I could get the support of the local council, that’s one way.

A scenario: Oxford City Council has decided that there is a need to accommodate 500 more students in central Oxford. It has decided that the back quad of Trinity is a second-rate building of no architectural or historic value and could be disposed of. It owns a car park 100 yards away.

It holds an ‘informal tender’ for a ‘developer’ to propose a scheme to apply for planning permission to redevelop not only its one-acre car park but also several surrounding buildings which the council feels are a bit, you know, old, and should be swept away as well.

Now 500 students are going to need a cinema, so let’s put the cinema in the Trinity back quad. And under the contract of the proposed cinema operator there always has to be a Ben & Jerry’s. What could be better?

But what of Botley? Although it feels like, and obviously is, an outlying district of Oxford, it is actually under a council called Vale of White Horse! White Horse? In Botley?

Or to put it more seriously, what on earth is a rural council headquartered in Abingdon and named after the White Horse in Uffington — miles beyond Abingdon and even further from Oxford — doing encouraging plans for a massive attack on Botley, which is quite obviously an outlying district of Oxford?

They would never dare do that to one of their own hamlets — Buckland or Buscot (to pin-stick only the letter B).

Well, surely it now seems quite clear that there is absolutely no point in even taking seriously this mad planning application in which a developer appointed by a distant, country council applies to develop a site that neither it nor the council itself completely owns, so that it can house 500 students in a castle with a six-screen cinema, demolish a loved shopping terrace still owned by its founding family, and knock down an old people’s home! And all of this in the interests of a ‘district centre’ for which no need exists, on the rim of Oxford.

Obviously this proposal must simply be dismissed as plain idiotic — like my own brilliant plan to demolish my own college.

Stephen Fry is a translator, planning campaigner and 30-year resident of Brazil. He now lives in Oxford.